Housing Crisis

These numbers are for the U.S.

After the Federal Housing Administation (BWO) announced in June that rents will go up by about 3 percent this year for tenants whose leases are based on the reference rate — about 54 percent of contracts overall — another increase is on the way.

The central bank announced on Thursday that it was raising the key interest rate further by 0.25 percentage points to 1.75 percent to counter "inflationary pressure, which has increased again over the medium term."

But many landlords of rent-stabilized buildings are big companies. They include developers like Cammeby’s, Lefrak and L&M Development, who each have several thousands of rent-stabilized units in their portfolios, in addition to market-rate units. The companies either declined to comment or could not be reached.

John A. Crotty, founding member of the Workforce Housing Group, which has about 1,500 rent-stabilized homes in its portfolio, said increases were justified because during the tenure of the previous mayor, Bill de Blasio, the panel largely rejected major increases, placing landlords in a difficult position.

The 2021 survey found that one-third of New York City tenants spent more than half of their income on rent. For them, looming increases will force difficult choices about where else to cut back on spending.

The number of homes for sale in the U.S. fell 7.1% year-over-year in May, real estate brokerage Redfin reported on Wednesday.

With 1.4 million homes on the market, May represents the lowest number since Redfin began keeping records in 2012.

Redfin attributes this shrinking housing inventory to homeowners feeling trapped by rising mortgage rates, adding that new listings are down 25% to the third lowest level on record.

Additionally, 37% of homes sold in May went for above listing prices, according to Redfin, sparking concerns that this tightened market is fueling bidding wars.

Sydney, which led the fall in home prices last year as the Reserve Bank began lifting its cash rate, will also power the rebound. By the end of June next year, the city’s houses are forecast to be 6%-9% higher than at the end of last month, lifting the median price to a record of just over $1.6m.

Spring listings were 11% lower than the five-year average across the major cities. “This signals rising competition between buyers helping to stabilise or improve prices in certain markets,” the report said.

However, a net-migration surge that added 400,000 people this fiscal year and will add another 300,000-plus next year, helped to stem and then reversed the slide in values.

“China’s current economic slowdown is not related to external trade, which has remained stable over the past three years despite the negative impact of the trade war, the Russian-Ukrainian war and the epidemic,” he says. “The real cause of the crisis is that we have a big debt problem on our balance sheets.”He adds: “Since July 2021, property markets have been suppressed by policies, leaving a lot of homes and land in the markets. In this situation, families, companies and local governments dumped their assets, resulting in further contraction in asset prices and a vicious cycle of debt problems.”

He says the central government should bail out the heavily-indebted local governments – because it was the center that had capped land prices and that also had taken away some of the local governments’ land sales revenue in the past, making them unable to repay their debts. He says the central government should purchase the local governments’ non-performing assets and revitalize them.

He warns that China will face an economic recession if no actions are taken.

According to China’s Ministry of Finance, the outstanding amount of local government debt grew 15.1% to 35.06 trillion yuan ($5.02 trillion) at the end of last year from 30.47 trillion yuan a year earlier.

In Mid-March, France began moving the homeless out of the capital ahead of the 2024 Games and the Rugby World Cup, which kicks off in September of 2023 in cities throughout France, asking local governments around the nation to provide “temporary regional accommodation facilities” for a stream of the unhoused ahead of the Games. The systemic relocation of “undesirable” populations has unfortunately become as much a part of the Olympic Games as ridiculous mascots and the boondoggle of massive stadiums that sit relatively empty once their two weeks of fame are up. In 2008, the Beijing Summer Games resulted in the displacement of 1.5 million people. In the five years ahead of the 2016 Summer Games, Brazil moved around 77,000 low-income residents out of Rio and forced the homeless out of tourist areas.

In Paris alone, the number of low-cost housing options being replaced by temporary rental units for tourists is staggering. The City of Light boasted about 4,000 Airbnb units in 2012. That number exploded to more than 40,000 units in 2015. Today, that number is closer to 60,000 and is expected to rise as the Games approach.

In the face of rapidly rising rents in Australia’s capitals, the Greens are calling for the federal government to work with states on a national rent freeze to protect tenants from the “bill shock” of sudden rental increase of 20%, 30%, or more when they renew their lease.

Yet the actions of landlord and property lobby groups against any such change to tenancy laws would have you thinking that limiting the rate of rent increases amounts to “bombing a city” as economist Assar Lindbeck described rent controls back in 1971. Supply will dry up. Landlords will sell. Houses will disappear.

In fact, some economists have gone so far as to say that rent controls will backfire and raise housing rents and prices in the future.

Renters in the private market are the most affected, but other types of housing tenure are impacted as well, said Eurofound, which works to assist in the development of social, employment, and work-related policies.

The costs for renters have risen while homeowners' costs have decreased, the report said, adding that private renters are facing insecurity, with almost half considering leaving their accommodation in the next three months due to affordability.

They report lower quality accommodation at higher rental or purchasing prices, with issues such as energy efficiency and lack of space being more common for renters than homeowners or social housing tenants, it added.

Prices of housing, to rent and to buy, have skyrocketed in Poland over the last year, to the extent that it is becoming a major issue in the campaign ahead of the general election in the autumn. Both the government and opposition have come up with proposals to address what is now a housing crisis, but they’re primarily focused on the middle class, experts say, as that’s the category where most voters come from.

Renting an apartment in a Polish city like Warsaw has become increasingly difficult. Not only have rents risen by as much as 50 per cent, but any new offer disappears from the market after only a day or two.

Experts explain a perfect storm has led to this situation. Like other countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Poland has been hit by inflation, which hit an annual 17.2 per cent in January. To counter it, the central bank has hiked interest rates, leading to a significant tightening of conditions for mortgages; with fewer people able to buy, there is increased competition for renting. Furthermore, around a million Ukrainian refugees continue to live in Poland, the vast majority of them using the regular rental market having been provided with no long-term alternatives by the Polish state.

He draws parallels between exploitative labor relations and the exploitative rental market to describe how property-owning landlords amass wealth on the backs of tenants — all thanks to government complicity dating back to the dispossession of indigenous lands and creation of property rights.

He then uses historical and contemporary tenant organizing stories — alongside his own professional and lived experiences as a political economist, policy researcher, and child of turbulent 1980s Brazil — to argue that the only solution is a struggle: the tenant class must organize to build political power and demand a more equitable, regulated, and largely nonmarket housing system.

Georgina's circumstances are far from unique. Average rent in Lisbon is now just over €2,000, while the minimum wage is about €760.

Portugal is currently grappling with a severe housing crisis, triggered by an increase in foreign investment in property and a lack of affordable new homes.

But it's not simply an issue of supply. Researcher and activist Rita Silva, who helped set up the housing movement Habita, says there are "more houses than people, but prices don't go down".

Portugal is currently grappling with a severe housing crisis, triggered by an increase in foreign investment in property and a lack of affordable new homes.

But it's not simply an issue of supply. Researcher and activist Rita Silva, who helped set up the housing movement Habita, says there are "more houses than people, but prices don't go down".

Years of government policy have stimulated home ownership and left building to the market, creating a situation where many are priced out and cannot find an affordable house to buy, or to rent. Dozens of people demonstrated last week in The Hague and presented a petition with 102,621 signatures calling for affordable housing to Hugo de Jonge, the housing minister.

The average home costs €424,681, more than 10 times the modal income. From 2015 to 2021, average household disposable income increased by 25%, but house prices rocketed by 63%, fuelled by low interest and a national shortage of 390,000 homes. By the peak of its housing boom last year, houses in hotspots had increased by more than 130% since the end of 2013.

A week before they were shot dead, an east Hamilton, Ont. couple were in a dispute with their landlord over mould in their basement apartment, according to police.

Homicide detectives say Carissa MacDonald and Aaron Stone were also just “days away” from moving into a new home before killed at a Jones Road home north of Barton Street East in Stoney Creek.

Some $1.5 trillion in real-estate mortgages will come due in the next two years - paving the way for a potential financial crisis as higher interest rates push down property values....

... In comments to The Financial Times, Chad Littell, an analyst at a major research firm that tracks commercial real estate, added that prominent players such as HSBC's recent decisions to unload outstanding debts at a loss come as a red flag.

'The fact that banks want to sell loans is coming up in a lot of conversations,' Littell, who works for New York-based CoStar, said Monday in a similar interview.

The finance expert further remarked of what he said is a clear sign of the bank's determination to reduce their exposure to an increasingly unstable market: 'I am hearing more about it than any time in the past decade.'

At the time of writing, HSBC is in the process of pawning off hundreds of millions of dollars worth of held-up commercial real estate loans potentially as a discount, as part of a burgeoning effort to wind down direct lending to property developers - who many say are poised to default come 2025.

This one is a long one, but a high quality video that explains a lot. Definitely worth listening to in the background if you have the chance to add to your watch later playlist.

A survey of over 3700 property investors by the Real Estate Institute of Queensland (REIQ) recently revealed that more than 80 per cent were considering bailing on the Sunshine State due to recent and proposed tenancy law changes.

When asked for their primary reason for considering selling, many pointed to ongoing rental reforms, bad tenants, increasing holding costs and the stigma that all landlords were “greedy, wealthy people” as among some of their key gripes.

OPs note: Did QLD really just figure out the solution to the housing crisis? lol

Fewer builders are starting new homes amid high prices for materials and loans, threatening housing shortages

The rate of house price growth is continuously exceeding record highs, according to data compiled by the Bank of Greece for the first quarter of this year. Indicatively, prices rose 14.5% year-on-year in Greece as a whole, with even higher increases in the two biggest urban centers, reaching 16.5% in Attica and 16.1% in Thessaloniki...

... In addition to domestic demand, Attica’s sharp price increase during the first quarter of this year is undoubtedly attributable to the fact that it is a major target for foreign investors.

This year there has been an especially abnormal increase in foreign investment through the Golden Visa program, due to the upcoming changes, which will make it more difficult to obtain a residence permit.